Elder Kade Edler Eppich: "We want to make sure they never fall away"

Elder Eppich and Elder Willougby at church with darling little children

April 8, 2013

Family,

So this week was another successful week! We found some new strong investigators and taught good lessons to our previous investigators! We also had transfers and out apt changed a little bit with Elder Ujifusa leaving but we got Elder Willoughby from Australia and he was in my MTC group which was pretty cool to see him again! But our old DL (Elder Rane) is now the ZL and my comp is the new DL so that’s cool, they both deserve it! Also I guess a couple of white sister missionaries were suppose to come to this mission but President Judd went to the area presidency and said that it isn’t a smart idea for the white missionaries to be here because it’s not safe! I guess they’re going to New Zealand now or something like that.

Also, one of the scary/weird things here in Ghana is one of the churches here believes in the gift of tongues so at night time there is a park near our apt and they just huddle together and scream and shout weird things so its super sketchy. It doesn’t sound scary but it is when you experience it. I've figured out one of the toughest things here in Ghana is fasting. I thought it was hard to fast in Washington but in Africa its super hard! Because we sweat so much and work so much that we lose all our water super fast! I’ve heard from some missionaries that fasting here isn’t suppose to be a full 24 hrs cause its dangerous but others say to fast for 24 hrs, so I just fast till I feel like I’m going to die/faint/huge headache. I’ve gotten pretty close to 24 hrs but never the full 24 hrs, maybe next month.

Oh something I need before I forget - my shoes are starting to rip out at the bottoms. Not the Eccos but the other ones so maybe you could call Mr. Mac and see if they can do anything about it? Also considering the shoes, try and get Eccos if possible, they are nicer than the others. I also think I’m growing! I’m starting to get the back pain more like I did when I was younger so I just take a couple of Advil in the morning or lunch if it’s bad enough. Nothing to worry yourself about tho.

Also when Ashley comes to Ghana if she can bring more saline solution because you can’t find it here anywhere. I still have some but I’ll probably run out in the next couple of months. Also if you can put on the USB the song Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, and Peponi by piano guys (actually all their songs) and the best songs of Josh Groban. If I would have known how much we listen to music in our apt I would have brought a lot more songs! Have they put up my missionary plaque?

So one of the things that President Judd has been focusing on is only baptizing those that are going to be strong members and future leaders so he wants to make sure that we teach at least 7 recent convert lessons a week and for some reason its super hard to do that and for the first time we finally got it! It was pretty awesome! But seriously we could be baptizing tons of people here but they would just fall away; we want our recent converts to be like Alma and the sons of Mosiah (Alma 23:6) we want to make sure they never fall away!

So a typical P-day deals with us waking up and washing for about 2.5 hrs and then we clean the apt and then I would go down to the market and go shopping. I just don’t like sitting in the apt because we haven’t been able to play sports because we've had problems with ingrown toenails here. But the last few Mondays we go to places like the art center or Melcoms (kinda like wal-mart) and for the money we just withdraw 160 Cedis at the beginning of the month from our debit cards. We use a little ATM down by the market. It’s pretty safe though.

Our next baptism is on the 17^th because we have stake conference so they can’t be confirmed this Sunday. And I guess we don’t get to watch conference for a month L

Mangos aren’t in season yet but you can still buy them but there more expensive. I haven’t really had much fruit lately because it’s actually more expensive than I thought considering how much we get each week. I’m about 30 or so minutes from the Ocean coast.

My stomach is getting bigger because I’m always hungry and eat a ton of food all the time!! I can put down rice and beans like no other. It’s also super important to stay healthy in this mission because if you get something small that they don’t want the Ghanaian people to mess with, they will send you home. I’ve been trying to stay clean and take my vitamins :)

I love you all and am grateful for this gospel in my life!! Have a good week and continue to send the prayers!

Love ya :)

Elder Eppich, Jr.